Whitehall vetting row as Cabinet Secretary frontrunner’s previous bullying probe leaked | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Sir Keir Starmer defended Dame Antonia Romeo, frontrunner to turn into the following Cabinet Secretary, after leaks revealed she confronted a proper bullying and bills probe in 2017. The Home Office everlasting secretary, considered one of three senior officers now sharing interim Cabinet Secretary duties, was investigated in 2017 whereas serving as consul-general in New York.

A single formal grievance alleged bullying of employees and misuse of public cash on bills, together with college charges, flights and taxis. The Cabinet Office inquiry cleared her, discovering “no case to answer”. However, the BBC reported that Dame Antonia was given “tough conversations” about her management fashion within the aftermath. Sources mentioned some elements of her private method had “grated with people”.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman yesterday described her as “an outstanding leader with a 25-year record of excellent public service, including having been appointed to three permanent secretary roles”.

They added: “One formal complaint was raised nine years ago and the allegations were dismissed on the basis that there was no case to answer.”

“Antonia Romeo’s record speaks for itself. I’m not going to get into individual HR files or reports.”

The controversy erupted as Sir Keir seeks to reset his Downing Street operation after the abrupt departures of a number of senior advisers.

Sir Chris Wormald turned the most recent senior determine to depart when he stepped down as Cabinet Secretary “by mutual consent” after solely 14 months – the shortest tenure within the submit’s historical past.

Dame Antonia is now extensively anticipated to switch him, probably changing into the primary lady within the position. Her former boss, Lord Simon McDonald, the previous Foreign Office everlasting secretary, intervened dramatically on Channel 4 News.

He urged the Prime Minister to “start the recruitment process from scratch” and conduct correct due diligence.

Lord Simon mentioned: “The prime minister has recent bitter experience of doing the due diligence too late. It would be an unnecessary tragedy to repeat that mistake.”

This was an obvious reference to controversies over the appointments of Peter Mandelson and Lord Matthew Doyle, each linked to people with convictions for intercourse offences.

Conservative chief Kemi Badenoch accused No 10 of bypassing correct procedures.

She mentioned: “The Prime Minister’s habit of bypassing proper recruitment risks leaving any appointee – no matter their record – vulnerable to claims of partiality. We need a process that is transparent, not one that appears to throw officials under a bus to suit a political reset.”

A authorities supply hit again sharply, dismissing Lord McDonald’s intervention as “a desperate attempt from a senior male official whose time has passed but spent their career getting Britain into the mess it finds itself in today.

“Antonia Romeo remains a highly respected permanent secretary with a 25-year record of excellent public service.”

Within Whitehall, supporters portrayed her as the unconventional change the civil service wants.

One senior determine mentioned: “Romeo is the opposite of a safe pair of hands and would attempt to rewire the state, which is what we now desperately need. She is one of the few senior officials that has always fought against the ‘computer says no’ culture embedded in the British state.”

Dave Penman, basic secretary of the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, urged the renewed scrutiny carried a gendered edge.

He defined: “Criticism of Antonia Romeo has a ‘whiff of misogyny’ about it. When you become a manager, when you make decisions, people don’t like you and they complain. There probably isn’t a permanent secretary who doesn’t have, at some point, complaints made against them.”

The row has uncovered deep tensions on the high of Whitehall as Sir Keir makes an attempt to stabilise his administration amid a sequence of damaging rows.

With Dame Antonia now finishing up interim duties alongside two different everlasting secretaries, the federal government insists her document is unblemished.

Critics, nonetheless, say the leaks have raised recent questions on transparency and due course of in probably the most highly effective unelected jobs in Britain.